On Thursday, the Ahmedabad Cyber Crime police secured a 9-day detention of three Rajasthani gang members who were accused of defrauding a senior citizen in Ahmedabad of Rs 1.15 crore through the “digital arrest” scam.
The complaint stated that the incident occurred on November 16 and that he was contacted by an unknown WhatsApp user claiming to be from Delhi Police. The caller informed him that a parcel they had intercepted included information connected to his Adhar card. The victim was also informed that the parcel had 140 grams of MDMA narcotics in addition to 16 passports and 58 ATM cards.
The complainant was also informed by the cybercriminals that he had been booked and that an arrest warrant had been issued in his identification. After that, the caller threatened to put the complainant under arrest if he did not corporate with the ‘investigation’.
The cybercriminals then used a video call to put the complainant under ‘digital arrest’ and instructed him to not move from his place. Following this, under the pretense of “taking his statement,” the caller – posing as a Senior Delhi Police Officer – asked for his bank account information and amount.
According to officials, they then requested that he send them all of his money “for verification”. They were able to win his trust by sending a document that bore the name of the Delhi court, the stamp and signature of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and the alleged logo of the Central Bureau of Investgation (CBI). The victim transferred Rs 1.15 crore to the scamsters.
The cybercrime police detained Shivraj Ramnivas Jat, Kamleshkumar Mohanlal Bishnoi, and Nathuram Nimbaram Jat after lodging an FIR and linking the bank accounts used in the scheme to a Rajasthani gang.
In addition to retrieving Rs 11 lakh in cash that the accused had taken out of the bank, the cybercrime police frozen over Rs 63 lakh in many bank accounts. The offender was remanded to the police for nine days by an Ahmedabad local court.
In a statement released on Thursday, the cybercrime police urged the public to avoid falling for these types of online arrest frauds. Notably, in a recent Mann ki Baat episode, Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the issue.
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